In advance of Jon Brion‘s show at Largo at the Coronet on Friday, October 25, 2019, I found myself reflecting on the previous few years. A Facebook memory had appeared in my feed that morning telling me that I had seen Jon Brion on that day five years earlier, which was really the beginning of my somewhat regular attendance of his monthly shows. I could go into a long reminiscence of JB shows over that time and how sometimes the atmosphere and song selections oddly and sharply intersected with my personal life. As I traversed a relentless few years of change and growth it seemed at times that Jon and I we were caught on the same emotional continuum or that Jon was some sort of clairvoyant specializing in reading feelings. I won’t travel too far down memory lane here today, but if you find yourself curious, simply following the Jon Brion tag on this blog to find some examples.
Getting back to the recent show, Largo-owner Mark Flanagan introduced Jon, but instead of the maestro appearing, Zach Galifianakis walked across the stage and played piano for a minute. When Jon did step on the stage a moment later, Zach went straight off with nary a word; Jon picked up the song where Zach left it and resolved it to a natural conclusion.
In a change to the typical show start of lengthy piano improvisation, after a quick hello to the audience, Jon immediately asked the crowd for a request. He played “Here We Go” from Punch-Drunk Love, beginning smoothly on piano and switching partially over to tack piano after the first verse and refrain. Then, moving to alter the sound of the piano, Jon placed duct tape over the piano strings inside the case and covered an Aimee Mann song, “That’s Just What You Are.” This was followed by an an extended instrumental piece on the piano that I didn’t recognize and which went unnamed.
Still at the piano, but now invoking the synthesizer and playing on the keys of the microKorg and sometimes reaching over to the mini celesta, Jon created a version of “Over Our Heads” from I Heart Huckabees that sounded like it came from outer space (as imagined by 1950s and 1960s science fiction films). This was a beautiful arrangement of this song and I’ve borrowed a lyric from this song for the title.
Next up was an old favorite, the standard “After You’ve Gone” performed in the traditional piano style, but sans lyrics. This paired nicely with the piece that followed, again on piano, no vocals, which might have been a version of “Handed Down” which fans can hear on the “Home Demos” bootleg, or at least parts of what he played sounded like that.
After this mini set of self selected songs, Jon turned to engage the audience and requested a musical key, a style, and a song. He was given F# minor, the Velvet Underground, and “How Soon Is Now” by The Smiths. Jon did all right playing the song, but admitted, “I’m not gonna pretend to have a good Nico impression,” so the attempt at style suffered somewhat.
He tried that request approach once again and was assigned “Monster Mash” in the key of G, in the style of prog rock. This gave him a bit more to play around with and he appeared to enjoy digging into this one. He quipped that the song, “Is gonna be 35 minutes long.” Jon requested reverb on the mic and used both the piano and the synthesizer. When he finished he noted, “That was the Monster Mash Part 1; flip the record to the other side for the guitar solo.”
In a slight directional change, he selected a beat from his beat box and played microKorg and piano, working through an instrumental introduction for a minute. It unexpectedly turned into his song “Same Things” from his former band The Grays. He continued a long sonic exploration of this song, which was fascinating for me, having been pretty familiar with both The Grays version and a version he once recorded for a radio show. This was only similar to either of those in the very basic parts of the music, the melody line and the chord structure, with an different execution.
I was glad to see him then head to get a guitar from his rack as at the last show I saw in August he never left the piano. He picked up a small, natural body color electric guitar with no identifying label on the headstock, but with pickups marked with the Guyatone brand. Jon remarked that he was “very persuadable” that night and that “even the guitar is pushing me around” as he was warming up on it. After hearing multiple requests he noted, “I’m just gonna start playing — one of them will win.” With multi echo on the vocals, Jon covered the Beach Boys song, “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times.”
Still on the guitar, Jon wandered through something briefly and then changed to playing and singing the jazz standard, “Foolin’ Myself.” I don’t think I have ever heard him play that one before. One last song on guitar, “Why Do You Do This to Yourself,” a song he co-wrote with Evan Dando, which Dando recorded for his album Baby I’m Bored and Jon has played a few times. I stuffed these two songs into the same paragraph because it almost feels like the lyrics of the latter are remarking on the lyrics of the former.
Back to the piano and once again Jon pilots the accompaniment into the sound of old sci-fi movie spaceship effects with his performance of “Mood Indigo.” Upon completion, he decides he wants to change the mood and asks for something happy. So in complete contrast, we end up with the theme from Sesame Street, “Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street?”
There then ensued an onslaught of requests with Jon listening bemusedly and picking out well-known riffs to briefly play. He then latched on to Van Halen’s “Jump” with the microKorg having its moment to shine. He attempted to turn the song into a singalong, but the audience was sloppy with the lyrics and timing and it turned into more of a mess than usual. He transitioned into “Runnin’ With the Devil.”
Jon announced, “Our big finish is not going to be uptempo. This is a fine opportunity to remind you what a pretty song this is.” He commenced playing a slowed-down version of The Cars song, “Just What I Needed” to close the main set.
For the encore, Jon returned to the stage and spent some more time talking with the audience to try to create something communal. After listening to many requests, he went with one of the first, performing The Beach Boys song, “God Only Knows” on piano. The audience did a much better job of singing along to this one. We may have done this before. Multiple times.
I was happy to see Jon interacting with the audience so much and also taking his musical arrangements in some new directions. The show was still on the shorter side for Jon, wrapping up promptly at 11:40pm. I’m always looking forward to what will come next. Unfortunately, it looks like I’m going to miss the November show, but can’t wait to see what he has lined up for the pre-holiday break show in December.